Instrumentation: Voice

Scott Barton, contemporary composer and Assistant Professor of Music at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, engages in a rather unusual hobby: He designs and builds musical robots. Hardly unexpected then, that Barton's first Ravello Records release STYLISTIC ALCHEMIES is an electroacoustic box of surprises. Balancing diverse musical elements with the virtuosity of a skilled playwright, Barton takes the listener on a journey that pushes the boundaries of established genre definitions.

Ravello Records welcomes Michael Wittgraf to its family of artists. Wittgraf is releasing his debut album MANIFOLD, an expansive effort with numerous layers hidden in the composition. Choosing texture over melody, the visceral compositions of MANIFOLD draw the listener in to the arresting music, and sound as if it would take lifetimes to unpack the complex layers building to Wittgraf’s stellar debut.

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi's debut TACIT-CITAT-ION is a reflection of contemporary Scandinavian composition – gestural, yet empowered by painstaking attention to detail. Where other composers' work ends, Ahvenniemi only begins. Breath sounds, glottal stops, microphone static, white noise, electronic interferences, the percussive friction of instrument bows – these byproducts of music are the backbone of TACIT-CITAT-ION, yielding a truly unique auditory experience.

On WITHIN MY SOUL, New York-based composer Akemi Naito’s debut release on Ravello Records, the composer’s intent was to create a collection of musical works inspired by words. The poetry and prose that inspired the album’s three pieces were crafted by a trio of writers who transcend the boundaries of time and place: 19th-century British poet and novelist Emily Brontë; 20th-century Japanese novelist Kobo Abe; and Japanese monk-poet Saigyo (1118 – 1190).

CLICKABLE: THE ART OF PERSUASION, from the celebrated duo of flutist Zara Lawler and marimbist Paul J. Fadoul, is a concept album, an audio version of a live show that uses theatrical performance and audience participation to convey the many facets of persuasion - from powerful storytelling to coercion, pressure, and manipulation. The album includes commercial jingles, a lullaby, dust jacket texts set to music, a protest song, a serenade, and a spoken-word commentary on social media.

New from Ravello Records comes AUTUMN WINDS, a collection of chamber music composed by Kirk O’Riordan. The music, which features pianist and PARMA recording artist Holly Roadfeldt along with soprano Ann Moss and Peter Dutilly playing viola, is as challenging as it is alluring; O’Riordan takes listeners to the outskirts of tonality in order to elucidate questions of beauty, existence, and mortality.

In HEARING VOICES, his third album of electronic music with Ravello Records, Jeff Morris captivates the psyche with music that is equal parts space age and primeval. With Morris’s characteristic sensitivity, the collection harnesses the expressive power of digital glitches, sonic manipulation, and underneath it all, the human voice.

“A poet who composes,” Chinese artist Gordon Eagle presents cross-cultural sounds and styles in his music for soprano and piano. MELANCHOLY IS LIKE A PLUME OF SMOKE features a collection of five songs with music and lyrics penned by Eagle. This new Ravello Records album mingles ancient Chinese poetic traditions and Western sounds in one forward-thinking recording.

James Dashow’s double album SONGS FROM A SPIRAL TREE—new from Ravello Records—collects many of Dashow’s vocal works into an abundant two-disk set. The album presents his compositions for voice, with instruments and electronic sounds, setting poems by Theodore Roethke, John Ashbery, John Berryman and Gian Giacomo Menon.

Guitarist William Anderson presents GENIUS LOCI, an anthology compilation highlighting his storied career as both a composer and a performer. The album features Anderson’s work with a variety of ensembles as well as his solo guitar music. The New York Times has deemed Anderson “the alert guitarist,” and with good reason; his playing reveals his passionate attention to detail. Anderson was mentored in the musical values of late Modernism, but now seeks compelling music without strictly aligning himself with particular aesthetic ideologies. The resulting anthology from Ravello Records captures the color and breadth of Anderson’s more-than three decades in the music industry.

Ravello Records proudly presents THE TRAVELLED ROAD from operatic composer Evan Mack. The album is a bold and progressive work featuring compositions that are thoroughly grounded in the modern era. A Little More Perfect sets the text of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion on Obergefell v. Hodges, which made marriage equality the law of the land. Three Reflections of Sister Dorothy tells the story of martyred nun Sr. Dorothy Stang and her fight to save the rainforest. The Road and the End expresses the eponymous 1916 Carl Sandburg poem as a musical tour de force, performed by vocal powerhouse Megan Marino. Mack is a firm believer that opera should be theater grounded in climactic expression, delivering larger-than-life stories while harnessing the full athletic thrill of singing; THE TRAVELLED ROAD embodies this philosophy.